engineering

National Bank Centre

National Bank Centre is a engineering topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand National Bank Centre rather than just read about it. In short: National Bank Centre (formerly Manulife Place) is a high-rise office building and shopping mall in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. Completed in 1983 and designed by Clifford Lawrie Bolton Ritchie Architects, it is located at the corner of 102 Avenue and 101 Street in downtown Edmonton.

Key takeaways

National Bank Centre belongs to engineering; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect National Bank Centre to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of National Bank Centre from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

National Bank Centre (formerly Manulife Place) is a high-rise office building and shopping mall in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. Completed in 1983 and designed by Clifford Lawrie Bolton Ritchie Architects, it is located at the corner of 102 Avenue and 101 Street in downtown Edmonton. At 146 meters (479 ft) with 36 floors, it was the tallest building in Edmonton from 1983 until 2011, when it was overtaken by Epcor Tower. Naming rights were held by insurer Manulife from the building's opening until 2025, when they were acquired by the National Bank of Canada as part of its expansion in Western Canada. Following the acquisition, the complex was officially rebranded as the National Bank Centre. The building features a two-level shopping concourse and is connected by the Edmonton Pedway to Edmonton City Centre and Commerce Place.

History The location of Manulife Place was formerly the home of the King Edward Hotel which stood on the site from 1906 until it was destroyed by a fire in 1978. Demolition of the hotel began in September 1979 and was completed in early 1980. In late 1978, land assembly for the building began at a cost of $20 million. In January 1979, it was revealed Manulife had purchased King Edward Hotel site at a reported price of $300 per square foot. In March 1980, Manulife announced plans to construct two skyscrapers at the hotel site. The complex would consist of a 27-storey office tower and a 20-storey tower (either an office tower or hotel) and would be built in phases. The towers would also be anchored by a ground level, two-storey shopping mall. In July 1980, Manulife abandoned their original two-stage plan and announced their revised plans would consist of a single 36-storey office tower with a retail complex. The revised project would feature a 460 feet (140 m) tower with 620,000 square feet of space, which would make it the tallest building in Edmonton. The tower would be connected to a three-storey podium, with office space occupying at the top level and the two lower levels dedicated to retail. Additionally, the complex would include a three-storey underground parking garage with space for 500 vehicles. Edmonton City Council approved the project in December 1980. Construction on the building began in June 1981 with a scheduled completion of June 1983. In February 1983, luxury department chain Holt Renfrew reopened in Manulife Place after relocating from their Jasper Avenue location. The building officially opened on 12 October 1983 at a cost of $100 million. At the time of opening, 70 percent of the complex's retail space was leased but only 12 percent of the office space was leased due to the poor office leasing market. Manulife Place was constructed by the local general contractor PCL Construction, with another local contractor, C. W. Carry manufacturing and erecting the structural steel. A pedway connecting Manulife Place with Eaton Centre over 102 Avenue opened in March 1984. A second shopping mall, Manulife Place Phase II, opened on April 20, 1988. The mall, located west of Manulife Place and north of the Hudson's Bay Company building (now known as Enterprise Square), is connected to the existing complex by a pedway over 102 Street and featured 75 stores and services across two-storeys. A pedway connecting to CityCentre opened in March 1993. On May 15, 2019, Holt Renfrew announced that they would be closing their 47,000 square foot store at Manulife Place on January 11, 2020, as the Louis Vuitton concession inside the store had departed for West Edmonton Mall, and as the Holt Renfrew chain had decided to focus on larger stores with 130,000 square feet or more. In January 2025, Epic Investment Services announced the building would undergo a $45 million redevelopment that would include a modernization of the podium and new amenities. On April 22, 2025, National Bank of Canada announced that Manulife Place would be renamed National Bank Centre. Exterior crown signage for National Bank was installed in December 2025, marking the completion of the building's physical rebranding.

See also List of tallest buildings in Edmonton List of Edmonton malls

References

External links Official website

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with National Bank Centre

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what National Bank Centre claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In engineering, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to National Bank Centre before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about National Bank Centre ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of National Bank Centre

In research: National Bank Centre appears in engineering research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses National Bank Centre in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: National Bank Centre is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1983 establishments in Alberta, Bank headquarters in Canada, Buildings and structures completed in 1983, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for National Bank Centre outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study National Bank Centre in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what National Bank Centre means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain National Bank Centre out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is National Bank Centre in simple terms?

Why does National Bank Centre matter?

Because it connects several engineering ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study National Bank Centre?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on National Bank Centre.